Popular culture in Latin America includes expressions like salsa, samba, religious rituals, masks, weaving, and oral stories that originate from subordinate classes. In the 19th century, popular culture became intertwined with notions of national identity. Popular culture represents the whole way of life and produces symbolic forms of expression. It involves syncretic religious practices like pilgrimages, festivals, and morality plays. Governments have both promoted popular culture to represent the nation but also pushed for modernization. Popular culture offers alternative ways of life and identity compared to Western culture. Mass media like radio, television, and telenovelas act as a bridge between traditional and modern aspects of society. Popular culture can be a site of resistance and

1. Popular Culture in
Latin America
Vivian Schelling

2. Popular culture expressions:
 salsa, samba
 religious rituals, magic, carnivals
 alternative theater, video and radio
 masks, pottery, weaving
 oral narratives
 ‘the whole way of life’
 language, dress, political culture
from subordinate classes and ethnic groups.

3. Popular culture and national identity
In the 19th century the notion of “popular
culture became interwoven with the search
for and affirmation of national identity.”
(172)

4. Popular culture as folklore
1. Popular culture is “the whole way of life.”
2. Peoples’ way of way of life produces symbolic
forms: music, language, literature & cultural artifacts

5. Syncretic religious forms and
practices in Latin America:
 Pilgrimages
 fiestas (festivities)
 autos sacramentales (morality plays)
 the figure of the devil
 the Virgin of Guadalupe

6. The use of popular culture in Latin
America during the 20th century
 Populist government (40s and 50s) and military
administrations (60s, 70s and 80s) appropriated
popular culture to represent the nation.
 At the same time, those same administrations
forced subordinate social classes and ethnic
groups to adopt modern ways of life.

7. Modernity vs. Popular Culture:
 Popular culture offers alternative ways of
life, identity, development and social order
 Popular culture is embedded in systems of
belief different from Western culture

8. Mass culture and popular culture
Mass media “have acted as ‘mediators’
between the State and the masses,
between the urban and the rural, tradition
and modernity.” (183)

9. Mass culture forms
 Radio
 Television
 Telenovela
 Film

10. Telenovelas
 transform abstract issues into private passions
 plots revolve around the emotional life of family
 incorporate the struggle between good and evil
typical of oral narratives
 are open to the world of current events
 sites of ‘mestizaje’ between the popular, the
national, the transnational, the modern and the
traditional
 promote sentimental integration of Latin America

11. Popular Culture and Power Relations
“… popular culture was seen as a form of
resistance or oppositional culture
prefiguring a new social order no longer
characterized by alienation and human
exploitation.” (190)

12. Popular Culture and Power Relations
Popular culture can be seen as a site of
conflict between hegemonic and counter-
hegemonic forces.

13. Popular Culture and “concientización”
“In this form of cinema [or radio, or
theather] the ‘popular’ exists in a different
mode to the cinematic productions of the
1930s […] that is, as a commitment to use
cinema as a form of consciousness
raising.” (196)

14. Popular Culture in Latin America today
“The specificity of popular culture in Latin America
[…] lies in the fact that folk traditions persist and
develop as part of the daily life and memory of poor
urban and rural communities. […] ‘folklore’ in Latin
America still exists as a means for the construction
of identities: Afro, indigenous, gender, migrant. It
also endures as a reference point and material for
elite art and literature, and […] as a repository of
themes, images and forms of communication used
by ‘mass culture’.” (198-199)